[IVFDF] IVFDF Funds In General (Only read if you have a direct interest in IVFDF)

Richard Mason mail at exedata.fsnet.co.uk
Wed Mar 20 10:56:46 GMT 2002


Hi all,

Following IVFDF 99 in Exeter, a certain amount of the profit made was retained in the expectation of a bill from the University for damage to the floors.  This bill has never materialised, thus leaving £405 in the IVFDF 99 account.
Recently a meeting was held of what remains of the IVFDF 99 committee, to discuss dispersal of these funds.  The conclusion was as follows:

Assuming that Exeter University do not discover their error when they look out all the paperwork for IVFDF 2004, we would like to put that £405 towards IVFDF 2004 for the sole purpose of maintaining or reducing ticket prices.

As the current IVFDF constitution states that all funds must be returned to Information Point, we feel that we ought to get the blessing of other member societies before taking this action.  Our only other option at this stage would be to give the money back on the proviso that it will be returned if the University discover their error !  I would therefore like to recommend our course of action to the other member societies and will await feedback.  Before anyone asks, I feel that this does need to be decided in the next couple of months as we will be putting our budgets together for IVFDF 2004.


On a more general note, and with the risk of opening up a constitutional debate, it seems that the management of IVFDF funds is rather inequitable - at least on paper.
The constitution states that all funds must go to Information Point, and therefore any profit made by that managing committee is put back into the central pot.  However if the festival makes a loss, the loss falls directly on the committee organising it, without any guarantee of back up.  This is surely a little odd, that you get no benefit from making a profit, but suffer from making a loss.  In the days when the festival had many members able to host it, and therefore rarely returned to the same venue within the time or any of the organisers, this might have been sensible.  However we are now in a situation where IVFDF is cycling between a few venues, and it is much more common for people to serve on more than one organising committee.

We need to encourage the University groups as much as possible, yet the current constitution certainly gives no incentive for anyone to organise it.  Wouldn't it be better if at least part of the profit from a festival could be put back into the society organising it, thus helping to further folk in that region ?  Or would it not be possible to have funds retained in some way, so that when that society hosts the festival again, it gets benefit from the careful management of the previous time ?

As an old lag, who is just starting to organise his fourth festival, I do feel slightly miffed that Exeter work hard and responsibly to provide a good festival which makes a decent profit, and yet next time around Exeter get no benefit from that.  I don't mind the money going to bail out other festivals which have done everything they could, but still make a loss.  However I am less sure about bailing out when avoidable mistakes are made.  In my recollection (and I am sure that people will correct me if I am wrong), the last three big losses occurred for wildly different reasons.
St Andrews acted prudently, but just couldn't persuade enough people to travel up there.  I say fine, lets use central money to bail them out.
Glasgow just got one thing wrong - didn't spend anything on advertising.  Great festival, but noone knew about it.  They made up a large proportion of the losses themselves, which I think was correct.
I can't remember who the other large loss was (I think Sheffield - but may be wrong).  In that case it was down to putting on a great festival, but doing no budgeting until it was far too late.

I am not trying to blame any individuals or societies for the losses, it is very easy to make mistakes when organising something as big as IVFDF, especially when you haven't done it before.  It is for that reason that a section was added to the constitution recently, whereby at the reps meeting of the previous year, the organising committee should present its budget for the next festival.  Hopefully getting the experience of those who have done it before, and avoiding the avoidable.  It did dismay me somewhat that this did not happen in any formal way this year, and that I personally have still had no opportunity to look at Sheffield's figures.  I sincerely hope that Exeter's figures will be given much more scrutiny at next year's reps meeting.

At this year's reps meeting the role of the central fund held by Info Point was mentioned a lot.  It was repeated stated that it was not there as a bail out fund, but to refloat the festival if required. That is correct as the constitution stands.  However if profit is to go back to that fund, should there not be some provision made for bail out of losses too?  At the very least it should be within the remit of a reps meeting to vote to use some of that fund to bail out a festival - without having to get the Friends of IVFDF involved at all.

I guess that this email, will be seen by some as controversial, and yes I suppose that I do want to stir up a debate about how we put things on a more professional footing.  Of one thing I am sure, the current situation just doesn't seem right, and that things should change one way or another.

I will await the storm with interest !!

Regards

Richard
IVFDF 89, 95, 99, 04

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